1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for detecting a magnetic material, and in particular relates to a method for detecting and imaging magnetic metalloproteins.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are many kinds of metalloproteins in a human body, of which, there are iron storage proteins, called ferritin proteins, which provide the iron required for the provision of the human body. Additionally, ferritin proteins are associated with many diseases, such as anemia, malignancy, etc. Therefore, detecting the ferritin proteins can provide important pathological information to assist diagnosis and therapy of diseases related thereto.
To date, there have been a number of methods for the detection and imaging of ferritin proteins. Electron microscopy is a well known imaging technique, but the vacuum environment used may lead to denaturation of biological molecules. Accordingly, because ferritin proteins contain magnetic Fe3O4, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) is used to detect ferritin proteins. However, the two mentioned instruments are very expensive.
Daniels (Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 2009, 394, 215-223) recently reported using magnetic sample modulation (MSM) combined with atomic force microscopy (AFM) to detect ferritin proteins. However, imposing applied magnetic fields on sample stages, may lead to destructive changes in the samples.
Accordingly, there is a need to develop a method for detecting and imaging magnetic metalloproteins, in which a sample is not needed to be placed in a special environment and in which as sample is not destroyed.